Agency`s Approach Proves Profitable

Tucked into an office building in scenic Vero Beach is an agency that is disproving the myth that million-dollar accounts stop just north of Fort Lauderdale.

Redgate Communications recently celebrated its fifth anniversary, and founder Ted Leonsis says the company will bill $70 million this year.

That`s exactly double what the agency billed last year, and before you can even catch your breath, Leonsis says the firm did it by not being an advertising agency.

``Advertising is dead. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, `Today I want to run an ad,``` said Leonsis, a former public relations director for Wang Laboratories and head of Harris Corp.`s marketing department. ``They ... say, `I`ve got a problem to solve, something to sell and an image to change.` In many cases, pure media is not the answer.``

``We figure out a client`s problem and put together a program that drives the business forward -- a program of advertising, public relations, sales promotion, events, collateral. ... We are a marketing communications partner,`` he said.

That approach has proven so successful that Leonsis, 34, opened a second office with 18 people in Boston in 1986 and a third with 19 people in San Francisco in 1987. ``All of our accounts are national,`` he said.

For the Dade County diagnostic division of Baxter Health Care, an account picked up a year ago from Winter Cornelius in New York, Redgate`s market study revealed that Baxter was marketing a piece of diagnostic equipment to cardiologists, instead of to the hospital purchasing agents who did the buying.

Redgate put together a program that won the loyalty of the sales force by providing incentives to sell the Baxter product. It backed the campaign with point-of-sale material and a direct marketing effort aimed at the hospital purchasing agents -- and sales of the product increased 95 percent.

More recently, Redgate beat out four Florida agencies for a million-dollar account from Racal-Milgo in Sunrise by being the only contender offering an ``integrated marketing approach,`` said Bart Peluso, Racal-Milgo`s director of corporate communications. That, ``and the fact that they are not a large Madison Avenue-based agency means they are a little hungry,`` he said. ``Let`s face it. A multimillion-dollar agency comes with a certain level of bureaucracy. We like a lean and mean agency.``

Redgate didn`t disappoint. In three months, the agency has put together two major trade campaigns for new products that would require a doctoral dissertation to explain. It`s too early to tally the numbers, but ``people are calling. People are requesting information. ... We`re hitting the target audience,`` said Kathleen Tagle, Redgate`s vice president and director of account services.

The young agency plans to open a Washington, D.C., office in early 1991 and one in Atlanta by the end of the second quarter -- and all of a sudden, Leonsis` prediction that his agency will grow 55 percent next year seems more realistic than brash.

-- Benjamin Moore Paints, one of the nation`s oldest and largest manufacturers of paints and stains, has awarded its Southeast regional account to Harris & Drury in Fort Lauderdale.

The company`s national advertising was the domain of Warwick, Baker & Fiore in New York, and, until now, regional advertising and promotions belonged to McKinsey, McMahon in Orlando.

That was before American Advertising Agencies International brought Harris & Drury together with Knox, Mimic & Hayward in Vermont. When Benjamin Moore asked Knox et al. to recommend an agency for its regional account, the agency Knox had come to know through the professional association came to mind. To land the account, all Harris & Drury had to do was show its work for Modernage Furniture and Concept Optics.